BANDON — Some Bandon residents are lamenting the loss of the city’s building art painted by the late muralist Jack Champayne.

The sea scenes are considered a tourist attraction, but to building owners the murals require restoration at a time many just don’t have the money.

Champayne began painting the murals in the late 1980s and continued until close to his death in 2003.

Just last month, painters covered over the sunken boat and octopus mural on the northern side of Bandon’s True Value Hardware with a fresh coat of yellow paint. Other Champayne murals have been painted over, too.

“I was surprised and dismayed to see that mural disappear,” said local artist Victoria Tierney.

Business owners say it’s too expensive to find and pay someone to restore the murals.

The murals have been featured in tourism publications and regional magazines. Done in private homes and the walls of stores and other businesses around town, the murals feature historic scenes, as well as playful depictions of marine life. Many still are easy to spot, not just in Bandon but also in Langlois and Port Orford.

“I wish there was a way to save them, even by photographing them,” Port Manager Gina Dearth said.

“If nothing else, new owners of buildings with Jack’s work should be encouraged to document it through photos or save it if they can.”

Dearth has fond memories of Champayne. She said she “will always remember Jack cruising around in his big boat Cadillac, Elvis sideburns, in his white painter’s outfit.”

“He was an avid fisherman and a good musician. When he painted the tanks at the sewage and wastewater treatment plant, we began calling it Latrine World, you know, after Marine World in the San Francisco area,” Dearth said.

Judy Knox, executive director of the Bandon Historical Museum, said that, of the murals painted by Champayne, only the one could be classified as historical. That was the picture on the side of the McNair Building for the Bandon centennial in 1990.

It depicted Bandon with Model-T cars and people dressed in the clothing of the period, along with familiar Bandon scenes, such as the ocean, the lighthouse, cranberries and Coquille Indians.

It’s gone, having been painted over with the orcas, which Knox feels really do not represent the Bandon area. Champayne painted the orcas at the store owner’s request.

Knox is delighted to have a collection of slides of the centennial mural, which were taken and donated to the museum by Karen Sinko.

She sees Champayne’s other murals as artwork created by one man — something like a one-man show.

City Manager Matt Winkel said there is no regulation to protect Champayne’s murals.

“The murals on the sides of the various buildings were commissioned and paid for by the building owners,” he said.

Private property owners have the right to repaint them, paint over them or replace them.

The only area where the city regulates paint colors is in the Architectural Review overlay zone, which generally encompasses Old Town, but does not include the True Value store. Even in that zone, if someone wanted to paint over a mural with an approved color, they would be able to do so.